Saskatchewan school board trustees moved swiftly to shut down an internal survey the provincial teachers’ federation hoped would quantify a lack of classroom resources while strengthening its position at the bargaining table next month.

The Saskatchewan School Boards Association (SSBA) insists the survey, launched this spring by the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) and cancelled in late June, could lead to teachers violating privacy laws by exposing students’ information.

The STF calls that “disingenuous,” and is accusing the SSBA of complaining about the survey as a means of thwarting a plan to negotiate class size and composition limits into the teachers’ next collective agreement — which would be a first in the province.

Both groups vigorously deny the others’ position on the survey, which asked teachers to assess the effective size of their classes by assigning extra weight to students with behavioural, medical and other challenges that take up more of their time on a daily basis.

According to the STF, the survey was intended to supplement anecdotal evidence with empirical data about how students with different challenges require more of a teacher’s time, thereby making a class more demanding to teach than the number of students suggests.

Documents and emails obtained by the Saskatoon StarPhoenix show that the SSBA, backed by the provincial government, objected on the grounds that it could violate students’ privacy rights and that the STF had no legal authority to collect the data in the first place.

“If school divisions know of the survey and do nothing, there is potential for each division to be held responsible,” SSBA President Shawn Davidson wrote in a June 17 email to the province’s school board chairs and directors of education.

“Individual teachers who complete the survey could be held responsible under (The Local Authority Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) and also open themselves up to potential consequences under The Registered Teachers Act.”

The survey asked teachers to assess students, using a scale from 0 to 4, on how different criteria such as language skills, situation at home, medical and personal care needs and safety concerns created additional demands and a potential need for extra resources.

It also asked teachers to keep track of students using their initials, information Davidson said in his email could be used to identify students but STF President Patrick Maze emphasized would never have been released, either by the STF or the third-party survey firm.

Days later, STF executive director Randy Schmaltz sent an email acknowledging “concerns that have been raised” and noting that the data would be destroyed. However, the federation maintains it was “well within” the bounds of the law and ended the survey to protect its members.

In an interview, Maze questioned why the SSBA — which has advocated for additional government funding despite its position alongside government on the employer side of the bargaining table — would not want additional information about its classrooms.

“How better to represent your electorate than to be able to say, ‘Wow, we’ve got some extremely high needs in our school division that require some further support’? … We were disappointed that it got shut down,” Maze said.

Davidson, in a separate interview, said each of the province’s 27 school divisions already collects information about students’ needs, and works with local teacher associations to accommodate those needs, he said.

“We know that there are challenges within our classrooms (and) we know what those challenges are,” he said, adding that the initial complaint about the survey came after SSBA lawyers raised concerns about possible breaches of privacy laws.

The STF and the Government-Trustee Bargaining Committee are set to begin negotiating the teachers’ next contract in mid-September. The teachers’ federation has gone public with its desire to get class size and composition limits into that deal.

Davidson’s email makes clear the survey to assist the STF bargaining committee with those negotiations.

That is expected to be among the teachers’ biggest battles when negotiations begin next month, but the STF has said its 13,500 members won’t be “bought off” on the issue half believe is more important than their salaries.

While the STF believes classroom size and composition are working conditions and therefore belong in the agreement, Davidson said Friday that different needs in different areas of the province mean those decisions should be made locally.

Maze, meanwhile, acknowledged that the subject is politically sensitive but said it needs to be discussed.

“The information needs to be heard. We look at the inclusionary practices, which are really important. We’ve gone away from special programs for students who have different intensive needs, and now we’ve gone into including them in the classroom,” Maze said.

“The problem is, the government seems to be using that as an excuse to warehouse lots of students with high intensive needs into a mainstream classroom without properly supporting every student in the classroom.”

Relations between teachers and the government have been strained since the 2017-18 budget slashed $54 million from the roughly $1.9-billion school board budget. The province restored $30 million in 2018-19 and an additional $26 million this year.

The provincial government declined a request to interview Education Minister Gord Wyant, and referred comment to the STF and SSBA.

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